NHS Targets Abolished In 'Bureaucracy Cut'

The NHS has to begin to make "immediate efficiency savings" to meet the increasing demands on services, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said today.

Mr Lansley said this would be achieved by tackling escalating management costs under a revision to the 2010/11 NHS Operating Framework, published today.

It sets out changes to key priorities for the NHS including plans to reverse the rise in management costs seen in the last year.

The Health Secretary said: "Spending will increase, but so too will the demand on NHS services.

"In order to meet this demand, the NHS needs to make substantial savings and that is why I want to see immediate action this year to reduce management costs so that the savings made can be reinvested in NHS care for patients," he said.

"Management costs in Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities have increased by over £1bn since 2002/03, with over £220m of the increase taking place during 2009/10 and now stand at £1.85bn and it's our intention that during 2010/11 we will remove all the management costs that have been additionally incurred during 2009/10, to get back to the level of 2008/09.

"Then in subsequent years, we will go beyond that, with a further £350m reduction in 2011/12," he said today.

The overall reduction in management costs will be £850m, which is a 46% reduction on the 2009/10 management costs.

The revised Operating Framework also sets out for the first time changes to the use of targets in the NHS.

These include the removal of targets around access to primary care and the removal of top-down performance management of the 18 weeks referral to treatment target and a reduction of the four-hour A&E target threshold from 98 to 95%.

Andrew Lansley added: "I want to free the NHS from bureaucracy and targets that have no clinical justification and move to an NHS which measures its performance on patient outcomes.

"Doctors will be free to focus on the outcomes that matter - providing quality patient care," he insisted.

Today's revisions also ask the NHS to give greater priority to two important areas, military veterans' health and dementia.

The NHS must ensure that injured military personnel experience a smooth transition from military to NHS care as well as receiving priority treatment for conditions related to their service.

Commenting on the intention to remove the 48-hour access target in primary care Dr Laurence Buckman, Chairman of the BMA's GPs Committee, said: "Patients should have good access to GPs.

"However, while this target may have been intended to improve access it has in fact had adverse consequences.

"At the moment practices need to have enough appointments available on the day or the following day to meet the target, so those who want to book in advance find there are fewer appointments available.

"We would therefore welcome the scrapping of this target as it will give GPs greater flexibility to organise their appointment booking system in a way that best suits their local patient population," he said.

Commenting on the relaxation of the 18 week referral to treatment target and the relaxation of the four hour A&E target, Dr Keith Brent, Deputy Chairman of the BMA's Consultants Committee, said: "Waiting time targets have improved the NHS in many respects, but they have also resulted in pressure on staff to make inappropriate decisions.

"Patients must always be treated as individuals and we welcome this commitment to allow doctors the freedom to do what is clinically inappropriate."

(BMcC/GK)